Gathering my day at its end
is as tricky as finishing off
the remaining rasam on my leaf.

No, no one's There Calling at Home

The traffic is usual and the path is far.
Lorries wham past, and roads are potholed.
Some rain has fallen, and so it slips.
My tyres, their tread gone, skid.

Crowded buses lunge,
And the bikes' beelines make a maze.
My brakes are weak. None can
hear my horns.

I have to whizz past.
No, no one’s there calling at home,
which is as empty as the roads here.

But I have to push the needle
to the speedometer's limit-
Perfect my cuts and smoothen my
drivethroughs-Knife through
the maze and be one with
the breeze. Beat time to a second's
section and find purpose.

A kind child's sorrow smile bloom up the sidewalk.
It’s a flicker of a look and a bump in my consciousness-
In the intersperse of a fishcart and a heading lorry,
and a waterslick on the road and brakes that fail.

The Longing and Losses of this World

The stars with no journey made.
The rain splattering on concrete faces.
The flowers smelling of sorrow
as their fate is to fall to the ground, crushed.

The birds coo, get mated and feel joyous.
But the river and the sea; you and me
separated by a lifetime's journey
feel blue and anarchic.

We discover that interesting person
At the end of a desultory vacation.
And feel the romance bloom
when dead end deadlines loom.

The sun looks great just before it sets
And leaves memory alone to feed ourselves.
The moon shines well when we are tired
and with sleep are we all drunk.

Tragicomedy?

My jokes-Nobody laughs.
I cry.


Occupational Hazard

With her face bent over me,
the dentist's ruffling hands tend my cavity.
A curious itch commands me-Lock eyes!-and soon spreads
to the other pairs at close quarters.

This article appeared in The Sunday Magazine (Jan 04 04) of The Hindu.
Its a touching appeal for trust among warring religions and brotherhood made through a delightful cricket allegory.

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2004/01/04/stories/2004010400010100.htm

Rainbow

I understood I lost my first love-
at Delhi Haat, an ordinary autumn day.
Thereby I lost my greatest entertainment,
my greatest companion and my soul turned gray.

I cried profusely that afternoon.
For myself, nay. For her, maybe. For us-I ain't sure.
But tears ran down and under a summer noon
they shall have glittered like a silver fall.

I began to run-my sobs grew embarrasingly loud.
I ran afar from her-she pulled away in a bus.
I wailed and my heart broke down against my chest.
Like a rocket's charge the release fueled my legs.

Staring down from a window seat a Delhi that passed by
I felt romantic, broken and a hero. I felt
beautiful in tragedy and momentous in grief. A thousand
violins sprang epic accounts in melody.

But I lost my capacity to love another afternoon-When on
sighting my old love after many years I had gasped
and bit my tongue too late: 'eeek I never knew she
could grow so stout'. A life's illusion died that day.